SNK Minis coming soon

Ikari Warriors II, now that\'s another game I remember playing for the nes back in the day. It was me & my sis, layin the smackdown on a whole load of enemies, rambo style, & we got pretty far on 1 playthrough too. As for ngpc games, I want snk vs capcom, & maybe even Rockman: Battle & Fighters.

Yeah, it did seem odd that Ikari III would release before Ikari II, so maybe it really was a scheduling SNAFU.

sniper712, to be honest, I think the chances of NGP[C] games coming to any of the download services are just barely higher than those of WonderSwan games, though likely significantly higher than those of Game.com games. I\'d advise just using an emulator; it\'s not as if that would preclude you from getting the games later if they ever did appear for sale.

sometimes its just nice to dream about things, even the chance of it happening is zitch at times. just trying to keep it alive, last blade is just too good to be forgotten like that, those sprites are burned into my mind for all eternity (not just last blade ones).

Something must have screwed up with SNK\'s release schedule, because the pair of SNK Minis released last month apparently don\'t get the standard SNK PS+ discount until the middle of this month. Anyway, sucks for anyone who was looking forward to Safari Rally or Ikari Warriors III since October, but at least the side-scrolling shooter is coming, along with a previously unannounced SNK Mini.

If anyone\'s curious, the SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 0 games we will still be missing after this upcoming pair will be:

I sure hope Safari Rally makes it out. Never would\'ve guessed at that game making it out not so long ago. Would be ashame to see something more obscure like that get so close to release just to get scuttled just before it was due.

Will be nice to get all of SNK Arcade Classics Volume 0 over here if they keep going (Hopefully along with a few more new games like the hopefully soon to be released Safari Rally and Alpha Mission, Ozma Wars, and Vanguard from earlier). About the only issue I\'ve had is how they handled the LS30 stick used in some of these games.

They should\'ve used the 4 face buttons for aiming (Such as how Digital Eclipse handled Robotron 2084 on the William\'s collection on systems like the SuperNes and PSOne in the pre dual analog days). Instead, those games are all but ruined with the bizarre shoulder button aiming scheme they used.

And I\'m not sure if Sony\'s policies allow it, but it would\'ve been nice if they had been able to detect if they were running on a PS3 so you could\'ve used the dual analog sticks in those games (Ala what they did on Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii for Heavy Barrel, another LS30 game).

Toss in aiming that fires your primary weapons at the same time, along the lines of something like Robotron 2084 or the modern Geometry Wars (Cutting out when you use your secondary weapon that would still be mapped to a button), and it would\'ve been perfect. That was my main fault with Heavy Barrel on the Wii. Having to use a seperate button to fire in conjunction with the right analog for aiming, albeit accurate to the coinop that had a fire button, just didn\'t translate well to a GCN pad or Classic Controller.

Instead things like these Ikari Warrior releases are a missed opportunity. I hope they\'ll consider bringing out a Wii compilation so we\'d get a physical copy of these and so the LS30 games would at least be playable.

Say, are you the same Atariboy as the one I\'ve talked to over at AtariAge? If so, good to see you here as well! :) If not, welcome, impostor! :P

They should\'ve used the 4 face buttons for aiming

I did wonder why they didn\'t do that. I surmise that the inputs from the original arcade stick were read in such a way that it would have been difficult to properly implement them as 4 buttons. That is, if the only inputs the game code takes are \"rotate left\" and \"rotate right,\" how would you map those to 4 inputs intended to indicate directions? Robotron\'s easy to map because its aiming/shooting setup really is 4 inputs.

it would\'ve been nice if they had been able to detect if they were running on a PS3

Unfortunately, I think the main barrier to this is that the PS3\'s PSP emulator likely purely pretends to be a PSP and has no way of passing any \"I\'m an emulator on a PS3\" identifier to the software it\'s running. I think the only way software might be able to \"figure out\" if it\'s on the PS3 would be to test an operation known to return different results on a PS3 vs. a PSP--i.e., look for a bug in the PS3\'s emulator. That, of course, would not be officially supported.

By the way, Alpha Mission was a part of the Vol. 0 collection, under its Japanese \"A.S.O.\" name.

About the apostrophes thing and post editing, there is a way around the proliferation (which you seem to be aware of already, come to think of it): remove all backslashes from your text when you edit. The extra backslashes (escape sequences) are coming from the forum adding escapes to the backslashes that it added to escape the apostrophes. I do wish the forum would run on different software, though (and properly spell \"separated\" at the bottom of topics).

Greetings and welcome. The passages above have served to remind me of Midway Arcade Treasures which I owned for the Game Cube that also used the face-buttons for directional aiming for games like Robotron & Smash T.V. I agree that it would have been nice to see them used in these minis too, but as onmode pointed out, might have been a problem if these games used a different input system. Also concerning the backslash thing, I now try as much as possible not to use words that contain a \"\'\", unless I get carried away or something. From what u have stated, I presume that it is safe to assume that u have a copy of Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii? If so, how is it, & what kind of extras does it boast? Reason I am asking is because I was also thinking of picking up a copy but have since been on the fence.

\\\"Say, are you the same Atariboy as the one I\\\'ve talked to over at AtariAge?\\\"

That would be me. :) I thought about mentioning that since I recognized your username from AA (Always nice to find another AtariAge user at a different forum), but I wasn\'t sure you\'d recognize who I was. Been lurking here for a while now thanks to this thread you guys have going (If it wasn\\\'t for these SNK releases and the three Data East releases, I\'d only own 1 or 2 Minis).

\"I did wonder why they didn\'t do that. I surmise that the inputs from the original arcade stick were read in such a way that it would have been difficult to properly implement them as 4 buttons. That is, if the only inputs the game code takes are \"rotate left\" and \"rotate right,\" how would you map those to 4 inputs intended to indicate directions? Robotron\'s easy to map because its aiming/shooting setup really is 4 inputs.\"

That\'s an excellent point, but they were able to impliment an analog version of that on Data East Arcade Classics for the Wii for Heavy Barrel (Also by G1M2), a game that used the exact same joystick as the SNK games in question. What to shoot towards the top right of the screen in Heavy Barrel? All you had to do was point the analog stick in that direction and you were aiming there.

\"Unfortunately, I think the main barrier to this is that the PS3\'s PSP emulator likely purely pretends to be a PSP and has no way of passing any \"I\'m an emulator on a PS3\" identifier to the software it\'s running. I think the only way software might be able to \"figure out\" if it\'s on the PS3 would be to test an operation known to return different results on a PS3 vs. a PSP--i.e., look for a bug in the PS3\'s emulator.\"

Yeah, I\'m not sure if it\'s practical from a programming standpoint without Sony having planned for that contingency in their PSP Mini framework. And even if there was a way to accomplish it, like you said, it\'s safe to say Sony wouldn\'t officially support it. But I sure wish they could\'ve taken advantage of the right analog stick.

\"By the way, Alpha Mission was a part of the Vol. 0 collection, under its Japanese \"A.S.O.\" name.\"

I actually imported the PSP collection, but somehow, I guess I must\'ve never tried that game. I thought it was fresh content when I downloaded the Mini release.

Oh well, being able to play it via my PS3 still made it worth the $2.99. Been buying all of these so far, despite most of them duplicating Volume 0\'s lineup.

From what u have stated, I presume that it is safe to assume that u have a copy of Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii? If so, how is it, & what kind of extras does it boast?

For bonuses, it has the standard fare. Sales flyers and the like. The game basically has an achievement system and each time you meet the requirements for one of them, you unlock the corresponding piece of bonus content.

It\'s a well done collection. My biggest gripes are with the 4 games I primarily bought the collection for. The 4 early 1980\'s releases all have glaring audio issues (Bump \'n\' Jump/Burnin\' Rubber, Lock \'n\' Chase, Express Raider, and Burgertime). But thanks to their improved PSP Mini releases of the first three games, that problem isn\'t so significant now.

There are other minor issues here and there (Magical Drop 3 had some minor issues mentioned by fans, as I recall), but short of being a diehard fan, you aren\'t likely to notice anything except the audio issues with the earliest games in the collection. The more recent games all seemed perfect to me, although I initially thought Heavy Barrel was off a bit after comparing it with YouTube videos where the game seemed faster. But apparantly MAME runs Heavy Barrel faster than the actual coinop hardware did.

If it wasn\'t for these SNK releases and the three Data East releases, I\'d only own 1 or 2 Minis

Are there any particular genres for which you\'d be interested in Minis recommendations? In the way of retro-feel side-scrolling shooters, for example, I can certainly recommend Flying Hamster and Ace Armstrong vs. the Alien Scumbags!. Also, we in this forum just recently gave out community-voted Minis awards (see earlier threads for the actual voting and nominations).

That\'s an excellent point, but they were able to impliment an analog version of that on Data East Arcade Classics for the Wii for Heavy Barrel (Also by G1M2), a game that used the exact same joystick as the SNK games in question.

You\'ve got me there. I\'d recommend contacting G1M2 through their website contact page, but they never responded to me that one time I used it myself for some other question. They don\'t seem to say much on their Facebook page, either, and their Twitter account is unused.

Hmm, interesting. It\'s disappointing when an emulator, especially a widely used emulator, has noticeable inaccuracies, (the messed-up sound in AtGames\' Genesis plug-n-play emulators immediately comes to mind). Jeff Vavasour and his crew at Code Mystics (former Digital Eclipse staff) also had to trim some sound capabilities in their emulation of some Taito games on the recent Taito plug-n-play. At least in the case of MAME, it\'s continually updated, so the bugs may be fixed someday. That\'s also an advantage the SNK Minis would have over the Vol. 0 UMD release--except that SNK Playmore would have to decide to spend money to do that. I\'m not sure they would (I\'m talking about the possibility of expanding the control options for games like Ikari Warriors).

I\'m pretty much a fan of every genre. About the only ones that don\'t particularly interest me are Japanese RPGs, online RPGs (Never played one, but I\'m confident they\'re not for me), puzzle games, sports (Although I enjoy the occasional game), and fighters such as Street Fighter II. I think all I\'ve played for original attempts on this service was that overhead GTA clone (I\'d of bought Pac-Man Championship Edition if I didn\'t own it for the 360 already, great game).

As for my favorite shooter in this collection, that\'s a tough one. I haven\'t spent much time with Alpha Mission yet (I played the sequel a lot, but never saw the original in arcades) so my opinion might change as I spend more time with it (It seems impressive so far). But I really like both HAL 21 and Bermuda Triangle, with the latter holding the advantage. If the original Vanguard had been included (I\'m so glad that was released as a Mini), I\'d pick that one.

I sure wish I could have decent controls so I could enjoy things like Guerrilla War and the Ikari Warriors trilogy. I love games like Commando, but having to use the shoulder buttons to aim kills these games for me. Guess I\'m left hoping for a console release (The Wii would be perfect with GCN and Classic Controller support like G1M2\'s Data East Collection had).

There used to be a G1M2 employee that was a regular at GameFaqs (Went by the username SegaSwirl) that would often respond to questions and solicit feedback, but I haven\'t seen him post in months. As I recall, he didn\'t quite grasp what I was getting at for my suggestion on the implimentation of the controls for the LS30 games (Unless you played dual stick games like Robotron 2084 on a console like the SuperNes or PSOne, it\'s probably easy to not quite understand what the person is trying to get across when talking about using the 4 face buttons on the PSP or PS3 controller to aim with).

Lastly, I wouldn\'t be surprised if Heavy Barrel was already fixed on MAME. Hopefully it stays fixed if that\'s the case (It almost seems at times like every step forward they take, they take two back, something I guess that is virtually unavoidable with scope of a program like MAME).

Heh, that\'s actually a fair number of genres not played. :) Come to think of it, I think I\'ve said something similar before myself, \"I like a wide variety of kinds of games, but oh, I don\'t go for this, that, the other, that one, this one, too, . . . .\" Anyway, the award winners in the thread I referenced, along with the nominations, are a good place to start; refer to the site\'s reviews for what looks interesting.

But I really like both HAL 21 and Bermuda Triangle, with the latter holding the advantage.

And of course it would be the only one that is so far not released and not announced for release as a Mini. That\'s how it goes.

having to use the shoulder buttons to aim kills these games for me.

Have you tried remapping the rotation to other buttons? Sure, it\'s not the ideal solution, but maybe it would help somewhat. I was thinking Square and Triangle for rotation, with guns/grenades on the shoulder buttons.

It almost seems at times like every step forward they take, they take two back

It took me forever to find ROMs compatible with the current version of MAME to participate in an arcade high score club tournament at AtariAge (under the Coin-Op subforum) recently. Something about certain images having been removed from the base engine so that they now need to be in the individual title packages.

I was amused last night to discover that Psycho Soldier had 16 straight 5-star user ratings in the PS Store, while Victory Road had 19 straight 5-star ratings. Those SNK fans are a like-minded bunch.

I think I could learn to like fighters a lot more if I had a friend that also wasn\'t a big fan of fighters and I didn\'t have to fight the AI (Sadly, being an adult really limits those possibilities). And learning specific moves and such is just a pure turn-off. I\'ve had a few fun times over the years, such as with Sonic the Fighters with a friend on Sonic Gems Collection one day years ago, I enjoy beat em\' ups or brawlers or whatever you care to call them. Things like Streets of Rage seem much more tailored for a single player experience without a lot of committment like 20 years of evolution with Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat requires to get the most out of them.

I can get into the occasional game, though. The Paper Mario series, for instance, is basically a JRPG, I believe. But yet, I love it. Someday I\'ll try to get into them (The Phantasy Star series and its reputation has always been where I thought I\'d try to start out, but I never get very far past the title screen when I\'ve tried them). And there have been several sports games over the years that drew me in. And a few puzzle games.

But in general, they\'re my least favorite areas of gaming.

If MAME ever reaches the level of something like modern NES emulation (Roms used to be patched and hacked to run on earlier NES emulators back in the 90\'s) and 2600 emulation, where the game code is unchanged and you don\'t ever need a new romset specific to a certain build of an emulator everytime MAME gets updated, it will be amazing.

I\'ll try the button remapping. I might just have to get it stuck out of my craw and just try to enjoy them. I\'ll able to enjoy something like Marble Madness without a trackball, Tempest without a spinner, or Super Sprint without a free spinning wheel, even though a gamepad is the inferior way to play all three and doesn\'t allow me to be nearly as good as I am with the correct hardware.

But so far, when I fire one up, I just think about how I\'d of rather seen it implimented.

Since we are well on our way to having the bulk of the pre NeoGeo SNK lineup available, has anyone thought about what games they would like to see released from what is left?

Here is a listing of SNK arcade games (Note that NeoGeo content starts with the first release from 1990 in this list).

The missing games, excluding Safari Rally and the rest of SNK Arcade Classics 0 that I believe we can be optimistic of making their way out eventually, are listed below (Hopefully nothing is missing from this list, were there any non NeoGeo releases after 1989?).

The ones that intrigue me the most that I have never played would be Satan Of Saturn, Lasso, Gladiator, Time Soliders, and World Wars. Of the ones that I have played, I am hoping that Chopper I, Mechanized Attack (Will be hurt without the gun, but that cannot be helped), Sky Soldiers, and Sky Adventure get released.

Of course, I am pulling for the unprecedented and I am hoping we will all be here a year from now amazed that their entire late 1970s and 1980s catalog of coinops has been made available.

Atariboy, I have honestly never heard of any of the games in that list. Thinking back, I don\'t think I knew of any SNK arcade games back in the day at all until the NeoGeo machines became fairly common. Granted, I didn\'t hang out at arcades much. Still, I get the feeling those titles in the list would all fall under the \"obscure\" heading.

Freelance, considering The Drop\'s less than stellar accuracy sometimes, I\'ll hold off on celebrating until I actually see it in the Store. :)

I agree 100% that they are obscure for the most part (Although NES gamers might recognize Mechanized Attack). When you get right down to it, most of their library was just that at the time beyond a few exceptions such as Vanguard (Partly remembered for the 2600/5200 ports) and the Ikari Warriors trilogy (Also helped by some popular console conversions).

I should have linked each game to their KLOV entry and added a gameplay video of each so people could check out some of them and see what possibly might be in the pipeline for future releases.

But with MAME emulation over the years (Where I have played most of their games) and their huge increase in popularity during the NeoGeo era, I bet quite a few classic gamers that have a fondness towards arcade gaming that also like SNK have done some digging to try out various games via emulation from their early years.

I picked up Prehistoric Isle in 1930 last night and played through to the end (thank you, infinite continues). Lots of fun! The gimmick in this one is the secondary weapon, the pod that can be positioned at any of 8 points around your ship (45 degrees between each), which fires differently depending on where it\'s stationed. The only real issue is that it can only be moved clockwise. The level design is pretty good, with the occasional vertical scrolling section, and the boss fights are interesting and varied (there is, unfortunately, one boss whose lethal grab maneuver is pretty much impossible to avoid if you have no speed-up power-ups--which is a very likely condition to be in while fighting him; as Freelance noted in the Drop thread, you lose all power-ups upon death). Beating the final boss gives you a million-point bonus, and since your score resets when you continue, I ended up with a million points exactly as my high score. . . . Overall, a fun side-scrolling shooter with unorthodox visuals for the genre. I wouldn\'t say it\'s near the league of the genre greats, but it stands on its own and distinguishes itself just fine. Among the SNK Minis, it\'s my favorite so far.

Minor spoiler: I\'m not sure, but I think the game\'s ending shows you getting killed. So, your mission was a failure after all.

Here\'s hoping Bermuda Triangle also gets Mini-fied! Strange that Prehistoric Isle also takes place in the Bermuda Triangle.

I oddly agree with all your modes, onmode-ky. The boss with instant grab is annoying. You\'re way too slow to avoid getting chomped on, and it\'s a 1 hit kill too. Being able to turn the pod counter-clockwise would\'ve been a big help,

Spoilers

Yes I too was confused at the ending. It may appear that you did die but there were two biplanes who went to the island so maybe the other plane crashed and not you specifically. If you did die, I can\'t think of many games in which you actually die. I can only name one other game at this point.

End spoilers

Those cavemen were annoying but luckily they\'re easily deposed of. Prehistoric Isle 2 looks even better but I doubt that will be a Mini.

P.S. Never heard of Bermuda Triangle so I checked it and I want it now. I luvs vertical shooters.

there were two biplanes who went to the island so maybe the other plane crashed and not you specifically

Actually, both biplanes made it back to their mother plane. That guy then says his bit about having to report back to our country, and then we see the mother plane getting attacked and destroyed--but this is shown as an overlay where the background is still the view looking into the plane\'s window where the guy was saying his bit. Was that a second mother plane that blew up, reflected in the window? Or maybe this was just an animation error (i.e., they forgot to change the background image to blue sky before showing the mother plane blowing up).

###END SPOILER###

Prehistoric Isle 2, if it gets released on PSN, will be part of NeoGeo Station (it\'s a NeoGeo game). Maybe the fact that Prehistoric Isle in 1930 was released without the \"in 1930\" part of its title is an indicator that SNK is planning to release the sequel, intending for it to be more obvious that it\'s a sequel to this game. As for Bermuda Triangle, I know just about zilch about it. There seems to be no good video footage online of the game. In the SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 0 trailer, it\'s just mentioned as [Japanese] text.

Are you SegaSwirl from over at GameFaqs/GameSpot? If not, nice to see a small company like G1M2 having two employees interested enough in their work to interact with communities interested in their projects.

I suspect the obvious answer to this question can be seen in the large gap since the last release, but any chance of some more Data East PSP Minis? Lots of nice games in G-Modes library that would make for nice Minis. Or is that a closed chapter for G1M2 at this time?

I hope we will see all of your guys hard work on these SNK games be released on a disc for a console someday.

I\'m late with this response, but G1M2, might you have any answer for our earlier discussions about implementing the aiming setup of games like Ikari Warriors using the PSP\'s four face buttons (i.e., along the lines of Everyday Shooter) rather than the current two-button rotation controls?

As for Atariboy\'s earlier list of remaining SNK pre-NeoGeo arcade titles that haven\'t been Mini-fied, I\'m afraid I\'d have to get back to you after looking up each one. I really know nothing about any of those games right now. Scrolling shooters, though, would automatically catch my eye.

I was bored, so here is that list updated with the release year, genre type, and a linked video included for each game. Also note that Safari Rally and the remaining games from SNK Arcade Classics Volume 0 are not listed here due to assuming that they are already planned for release.

Satan of Saturn (1981) - Space (Looks fun)Lasso (1982) - Skill (Note that the video is incorrectly stretching a vertically oriented arcade game to 16:9. Looks like a fun game)Joyful Road (1983) - DrivingMad Crasher (1984) - RacingJumping Cross (1984) - RacingGladiator (1984) - Racing (Looks like a fun game)Main Event (1984) - BoxingWorld Wars (1987) - Shooter (I could not locate video of this game so I linked a screenshot instead)Time Soldiers (1987) - Overhead shooter (Note that this is a vertically oriented game but the video is incorrectly stretched to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Used an LS30 rotary joystick and looks to be fun. Unsure if this is SNK owned or if they just distributed it for Romstar, its KLOV entry is not clear on which of the two that actually owns it)Lee Trevino Fighting Golf (1988) - (Could not find video so I linked a screenshot. Recieved positive reception when ported to the NES. Also note that it might have potential licensing issues unless they excise the tie in with whoever Lee Trevino is)Chopper I (1988) - Vertically Scrooling Shooter (Great game that I would love to see come home)Mechanized Attack (1988) - Lightgun Shooter (Was ported to the NES. Fond memories of this game and would like to see it be included in this program even with the obvious control limitations that will be present)Paddle Mania (1988) - Sports (Could not locate video so linked the only screen image KLOV has. It contains various paddle games and I do not know much more than that)Touchdown Fever II (1988) - Football (Could not locate video, but linked a video of the first Touchdown Fever which is on SNK Arcade Classics Volume 0. Looks to be just a minor update of the original)Fighting Soccer (1988) - Soccer (Could not locate video, linked a screenshot)Sky Soldiers (1988) Vertically Scrooling Shooter (Great game)The Next Space (1989) - Vertically Scrooling Shooter (Never paid any attention to this until now, looks like fun)Sky Adventure (1989) - Vertically Scrooling Shooter (Good game)

The games that I think you would personally be most interested in, onmode-ky, would be the 4 vertical shooters (Chopper I, Sky Soldiers, The Next Space, and Sky Adventure).